


In The Night

by magnusbanes



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 04:26:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnusbanes/pseuds/magnusbanes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about a lake, two men, and a few blue butterflies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Night

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Sam, who beta'd this multiple times and made it about 10000% awesomer.
> 
> Based off this: http://misterkay.deviantart.com/art/Merlin-14-270035785

There wasn’t any indication, beforehand, that anything was out of the ordinary. Merlin behaved the same as usual, grumbling and complaining as he went about preparing Arthur for bed, then telling him goodnight and (supposedly) returning to his own room off Gaius’. 

After Arthur had counted six hundred and thirty-four sheep, to no avail, he decided to give up on sleep. The prince stood by the window regarding the silent courtyard, which was bathed in the eerie light of the moon, letting his mind wander. So it was that at first he didn’t take any notice of the solitary figure hurrying across his line of vision. It was only when the person was almost out of his sight did the prince realise he recognised that walk: it was the same one Merlin did when he was trying to be surreptitious. He spared a moment to wonder what business his manservant could have outside the citadel in the middle of the night. Secret lover? Illegal dealings? None of it really seemed to be the kind of thing Merlin would do.

Sighing, Arthur swung his cloak on, jogged out of his room and down the hall. Merlin being Merlin, he’d probably got himself too deep into something, and Arthur reasoned with himself that it would be much easier to save Merlin from his obvious impending doom than find a new manservant who was the perfect combination of insolent, rude, and annoying. 

When Arthur emerged from the stairwell into the courtyard, he panicked momentarily, because he couldn’t see Merlin – but then he caught a glimpse of the hem of a dark cloak disappearing into the lower town and he relaxed. 

Some time later, when Arthur had begun to despair that Merlin was going to do anything except wander the forest aimlessly all night and keep Arthur from his bed, the man in front of him stopped. His cloak fell to the ground, and Arthur crept closer silently. When Merlin laughed, the prince was a little confused, but when he turned around to look straight at Arthur, he understood. Arthur’s stalking skills were evidently not on top form tonight.

Arthur dropped his own cloak to the forest floor. Surprisingly, the air that rushed in to touch his skin was not cool, but pleasantly warm. Merlin did not smile; he held out his hand silently. This confused Arthur - did Merlin want him to take it? To hold his hand? Could Arthur not simply follow Merlin, or Merlin could explain where they were going, or why he had left the castle in the middle of the night?

His deliberation clearly irritated Merlin, as the manservant simply grabbed Arthur’s wrist, turned, and began to tow him through the forest, towards some destination known only to Merlin. Along the way, and later Arthur could not have told you when, Merlin’s hand slipped down from its tight grasp on Arthur’s wrist to rest wrapped loosely around his hand. When Arthur shifted his own hand so that his fingers were intertwined with Merlin’s, neither of them said anything, but Merlin slowed down just slightly so that their steps were better matched. The woods around them stayed quiet, without even the usual nocturnal animal sounds one would expect. Arthur wondered about that for a moment, then discarded the thought like a dirty tunic. He let his mind wander, instead. 

After a century or more of walking in the quiet of the woods, the trees thinned and stopped. Before the two men lay a huge lake, glittering in the moonlight like a precious gem. And though Arthur had hunted in this part of the woods for as long as he could remember, as had his father before him, never once had he seen or heard of a lake in it. Together they moved to the edge of the water and stopped.

Merlin’s hand slipped from Arthur’s, and immediately Arthur missed its comforting presence. He hadn’t realised previously how much he was relying on it to quell his internal conflict about what, exactly, was going on. Merlin stepped forwards and Arthur wished he’d just step back, grab his hand, explain, do _somethinganything_ that would make all of this make sense.

Something caught his eye. A glowing blue butterfly was dancing through the air, and Arthur watched as it pirouetted and swirled. When he glanced over at Merlin, his manservant had twisted at the waist and was watching him with eyes that smiled. Arthur stared.

The butterfly reappeared in his vision, flying through the air as though it was natural for butterflies to be out at night. This distracted Arthur from Merlin, as in turn the huge full moon in the sky distracted Arthur from the bizarre insect. 

_Splash!_

Just a small noise, hardly noticeable, but in the silence of the forest Arthur heard it like the beat of a war drum. His eyes flicked to the source of the noise. Merlin. He was walking _into_ the lake.

Arthur gasped, wanted to say something - _don’t go in there, you don’t know what could be hiding in it; the water will be cold, are you purposefully trying to become ill; stay back, Merlin, I don’t know what’s going on and I’m a little bit scared and I want you to stay here with me_ – but the night was soundless and it felt wrong to say something. But when he’d gasped, he’d reached out for Merlin unconsciously, stepped forwards, and to his surprise he saw that he, too, had water lapping over the toe of his boot.

Looking up, he saw that the lake had now enveloped Merlin up to his waist, and there he had stopped. His back was to Arthur, his hands were stretched out, palms to the stars, and oddly enough more glowing blue butterflies danced through the air around and near him. It was a breath-taking sight. The shade of the butterflies’ wings was paler than that of Merlin’s shirt, but they matched well, bringing out previously unseen hues in the water of the lake as well as the night sky. It seemed unreal, a fantasy, something that might be painted on a canvas from some artist’s imagination, not the kind of thing one accidentally stumbled upon during otherwise-perfectly-average summer nights. In fact, from beginning to end, the entire episode had had a definite dreamlike filter to it. But the possibility of this being a dream could be quashed quite easily, simply because it was too strange and beautiful to be one. 

As Arthur watched, Merlin tilted his head back. His body followed, and he leant farther and farther back, and the butterflies around him spiralled up towards the moon and out of sight, and with a _splash_ of water Merlin fell in backwards. He floated there for a long time, face, hands and chest just breaking the surface of the water. 

Suddenly, he drew himself back up to stand properly in the lake as he had been doing before. This time, his arms hung limply by his side. Arthur glanced upwards, and his suspicions were right, the glowing butterflies from before had returned. But now their concentration was lessened, their tiny population spread out over the lake and as he watched, they entered the woods that surrounded the water. His gaze returned to Merlin. Arthur hadn’t previously registered that he was walking into the water as well, but now that Merlin was less than a foot away he wondered absentmindedly how he could have not realised. The water that lapped around his body was the temperature of his bath after he’d had it – cool, but with a residue of warmth that kept away chills.

A movement caught his eye, and all of his attention focused on a droplet of water which flowed from the soaked mass that was Merlin’s hair down his pale, pale neck and under the collar of his blue shirt. Merlin’s ever-present neckerchief had not attended this trip, Arthur realised belatedly, and that in itself proved the pure otherworldliness of their night-time excursion. 

An urge washed through his body, and Arthur did not resist. Everything was already slightly peculiar, so why not further that?   
He stepped forwards and wrapped his arms around Merlin’s waist, standing very close, and it made a place inside him he hadn’t even known about all happy and squelchy. Arthur didn’t know why, but he did know that it felt lovely. Merlin fit against his chest as if his back had been sculpted for that purpose exactly, and Arthur’s heart was swelling in a way he’d be embarrassed to admit to, sending waves of _warm_ and _blissful_ and _content_ to his very extremes. 

Merlin stiffened for a moment, then relaxed back into Arthur in a way that only increased the feeling of rightness. Arthur closed his eyes. He could smell the forest, yes, but the scent of Merlin, one he would recognise anywhere, filled his nostrils. He couldn’t have described it. It was something like how he imagined one of those glowing, blue butterflies might smell – interesting, soothing, an aroma to breathe. 

The two stood together for about a minute before Merlin began to twist slowly in Arthur’s arms, pushing his face into Arthur’s hair as he turned. Arthur slackened his muscles so Merlin could twist to face him, then rested his hands on Merlin’s upper back. Merlin’s hands came up to rest on his chest in return. He blinked his eyes open in surprise, and saw Merlin looking at him softly, face closer than he’d expected. The unusual proximity was, oddly, not at all uncomfortable. 

Going on instinct, Arthur inched his face closer to Merlin’s, and their noses bumped. The awkwardness of the touch was soon gone, though, as Merlin pressed his own face forwards and joined their mouths together, seamlessly, perfectly, in a way Arthur hadn’t realised he’d craved until the moment it happened. His eyes fluttered closed a second after Merlin’s did, and the kiss was deep for a moment, with Merlin’s tongue just flicking over his, before his manservant – oh, gods, his _manservant_ , but this wasn’t a good time at all for him to think about that – pulled back. 

Their cheeks pressed together, and when he felt the flurry of eyelashes on his cheekbone, Arthur opened his eyes too.   
He didn’t know when Merlin’s damp arms had wrapped around his neck, but he moved his hands from Merlin’s back to the place just under his rear, where he could grab and _lift_ , pulling Merlin’s legs up and wrapping them around his own waist. His shirt soaked through immediately where their chests pressed together, but Arthur couldn’t have cared less if he’d tried. And Merlin – Merlin felt good there, it felt like both of their lives had just been building up to this one secret night together in a secret lake in the woods. In the next moment he realised that it no longer mattered if Merlin was his manservant or not, they could figure this out together. It was a strange predicament, yes, but made that little place inside of him truly happy. He wanted this, whatever this was, and later they could and would discuss it and decide upon the best plan of action.

But now was not the time for talking. It did not matter – there would be other days, other nights, to say everything he thought and wanted, and for Merlin to chip in with his opinions, too. Nothing mattered right then except for Merlin’s hands tracing the lines of Arthur’s jaw, his neck, and Arthur supporting Merlin in the water like he weighed nothing, and Merlin’s lips on Arthur’s eyelids and his nose and cheeks and finally his lips again.


End file.
